An Irrelevant Aside

Tu m’as donné un wah-wah.
Agro-tourism: Haycation.
Who controls the chilled beverages, controls the art.

– Postcards From Red Squirrel Trail

We can’t all, and some of us don’t. That’s all there is to it.

— Eeyore

Long ago as it now seems (December of 2010), I reeled in the complete Dick van Dyke Show on DVD. At first, I just watched the two episodes with brother Jerry van Dyke playing Rob’s narcoleptic brother who, while sleepwalking, could be an energetically entertaining banjoist. Then, the box (kind of bulky for 25 discs—five seasons, five DVDs each) sat on a shelf for years. From time to time the thought of somehow offloading it crossed my mind, but I didn’t believe it would fetch much if I were to try selling it, and besides, in the back of my mind I really did want to watch. So I found a more efficient physical storage solution, and I’ve now at last been watching. In addition to the predictable pleasure of seeing guest actors whom I knew from other (generally later) shows such as Jamie Farr, Richard Dawson and Robert Vaughn, I recently watched an episode in which Leonard Weinrib (nope, never heard of him) plays a stand-up comic, and he does a topical Jack Kennedy imitation. The show was broadcast in March of 1963.